Earliest Green Tea of the Year - Frosty Spring Yunnan Roast Green

I bought this some time ago but am just getting around to trying it now! I don’t know what took me so long to actually try it – it is SO GOOD.

The sip starts with a nutty taste, and finishes with a light, fresh almost buttery taste with a note of tartness. It’s a very interesting contrast of flavors. Very nice.

This smells like roasted veggies. The wet green leaves are a very vibrant green and that also shows in the very vibrant yellow/green coloring of the infused tea as well.

My first sip revealed a roasted green tea, indeed! It’s the type of taste that sticks with you for a while – it’s fairly strong – and true GREEN – but an ok tasting green tea, regardless!

Love this. We drank this coming home from the mall, steeped in two to-go cups of hot water that the Marche kindly gave us with our baguette. Not very civilized, but far better than what was offered in the mall, even if lacking in style of serving vessel!

My husband thought it was very seaweedy. I found this fresh, and lovely. The liqour is a light grey green, the smell fresh, spring like and green.

I was one of those fortunate to get a free sample of this through Ginkgo’s generosity. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have a great deal of green tea experience which is one of the reasons I wanted to give this a try. In fact, it’s my first loose leaf green. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let that bias what I said here, but I didn’t have to worry. I think it is wonderful!

The dry leaves are, overall, a deep green color with variations in the individual leaves ranging from slightly brownish to bright, silvery flecks. They’re a medium length and generally straight, or with a tiny bit of curl. There’s a gently vegetal smell about them; I’m going to say asparagus, so Jacqueline probably wouldn’t go for it. ;-)

The liquor is tinged with light green, but otherwise almost clear. It smells much like the dry leaves, but rounder. The taste is quite sweet and vegetal, with something of a nutty undercurrent. It has a buttery feel to it, as though it is melting in my mouth. Very smooth and reminiscent of spring without being grassy, great for a day like today. I’m not getting smokiness, but I wouldn’t mind if I did.

The leaves unfurl prettily, and carry their smell with them post-steeping. The second steep worked reasonably well, too, though I can see that significantly lengthening steeping time could yield some bitterness. I went 90 seconds on the resteep and there was just a tad of bitterness in the aftertaste, but it was just enough to make things interesting rather than unpleasant.

This is going on my shopping list. I can see myself becoming fond of greens! I should add that I didn’t read the notes on how to prepare this until after I’d made it but that obviously didn’t hamper my enjoyment. I just wonder how different it would have been had I heeded them.

Steep Information:
Amount: 4g
Additives: none, MilitiaJim: Honey
Water: 2 zarafina cups filtered water
Tool: Zarafina Green-Loose-Medium
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: very light bad to get very close to smell it, vegetal and sweet
Steeped Tea Smell:
AmazonV: again a very light smell, vegetal, light, sweet, minty
MilitiaJim: medicinal
Bobbie: bengay
Flavor:
AmazonV: delicate, light, sweet, minty, refreshing
MilitiaJim: earthy like an unwashed potato, maybe dirty cinnamon
Bobbie: eww
Body: Light
Aftertaste: minty, refreshing, tingly
Liquor: pale yellow-green

So Bobbie and MilitiaJim gave me their teas to finish as they did not like this tea at all. I was surprised I liked this tea and found it refreshing as I am not a green tea person.

I did find it earthier with the clover honey. Not in a bad way though.

I think this tea came though best without additives.

Post-Steep Additives: none

Resteep: Zarafina, 2 c, Green-Loose-Medium
pretty much the same as the first steep, less tingly though

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/03/life-in-teacup-loose-leaf-green-tea_11.html

I received this tea as a sample from Life in Teacup. I hadn’t tried it before and was looking forward to something nice and fresh this afternoon, so I picked this one out of the box.

This is a really nice, delicate yet solid green tea. It has a vegetal taste, but also a natural sweetness to it that’s really pleasing. I was surprised. I was concerned that it would be too vegetal tasting, but it’s not.

This is a very bright, fresh tea. There is definitely a vegetable kind of flavor, and it has a very fresh green odor. Drinking it made me feel I was doing something very good for myself. There was no trace of bitterness at all. It had a very smooth feel to the tongue. I’m very, very glad that I got to try such a wonderful tea! It made me hope that I’ll use up the teas I have quickly so I have room to order some of this tea.

It’s very good, and I’m looking forward to reading some of the other reviews. Thanks Gingko!

This looks unusual. Roast green. However, leaves look darker – very dark green. But the smell is grassy. Like dry grass. Roast green – yeah smells exactly like that :)

I’m leaving the water to chill for few minutes. And I’ll go with a short first steep.

Smells like yummy green yunnan. Yellow color.

Mmmm that nutty scent that my favorite silver needle has. I love that in tea. It’s like quality green tea mixed with white silver needle to me :) Which is awesome. If it had a bit more round, maybe slightly sweeter taste it would be perfect. But I still like it a lot! Fresh, smooth, very drinkable and with a nutty note :)

This is a very interesting Chinese green tea! 90% of the taste of this tea is in the aftertaste – as the tea leaves your mouth, a tangy and somewhat astringent flavor arises from the sides and back of your mouth. There are some savory undertones, but they seem to quickly dissipate. In my experience, this has been much more flavorful than most Chinese green teas – just make sure you like tangy notes!

Very unusual tasting green. I drank this first thing in the morning and perhaps my nose was still blocked but it seemed to smell of Turkey dinner. Not in a unpleasant way. Not something I would drink daily but enjoyable.

I love the smokiness of this tea, ever since falling in love with teas from Yunnan, I got this tea as soon as I could get my hands on them. I am happy that I did. Thanks LIT.

Hmm. I used the brew-in-mug method here again, with cooler water, and this tea began and ended very strong, although it was smoother in the middle. Oddly, the leaves never floated at all, but only unrolled slowly at the bottom of the mug. I was liking it in the middle, for the second steep and around the edges into the first and third steeps, but there’s a bitter aftertaste lingering from the third steep.

Still, many thanks to Gingko for letting me try it! (I feel more than a little embarrassed to have forgot to actually, y’know, sample this for several weeks! All the excitement of the very first tea of the year — and then I let it go to the end of March.)

The smell of the dry tea is very interesting….slightly smoky (guess that is the roast part of the name) and sweet. I admit that I didn’t read the brewing instructions before diving in, so I may have slightly oversteeped. However, I really like this tea. It definately has the taste quality of a green, but not at all bitter. The initial sip is the roasted part which is so familiar, but I can’t place it. Maybe roasted vegetables…. This tea is good without milk or sweetener, but at the same time is strange. In a good way.

After drinking more of this tea, I realize this just isn’t my cup. I believe I will be passing this on or may retry this on a different day using a shorter steep time. I enjoyed the chance to try this – the more you try, the more you understand what you really like. I’m lowering the previous rating to reflect that this just isn’t for me. It is good, but not what I’m looking for.